Feature
From Meddling to Preaching
Three Ways to Expose the Partly Natural Family by David Mills
When a pastor says something in a sermon that you do not like, goes the old joke, he has “gone from preaching to meddling.” He has stopped telling pleasant and comforting stories (or enjoyably convicting stories about the sins you don’t commit) and started interfering with your life.
Many traditional Christians and cultural conservatives love what the family scholar Allan Carlson has called “the Natural Family” as a theory, because Americans love anything “natural.” It seems more direct, more genuine, more authentic, untainted by commerce and calculation. And it has its political uses: They love to appeal to . . .
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David Mills has been editor of Touchstone and executive editor of First Things.
more on family from the online archives
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Today's Culture Wars Are Both Ancient & Modern by Allan C. Carlson
32.1—January/February 2019
on Down Syndrome & the Lives That Matter by David F. Watson
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more from the online archives
20.4—May 2007
A Short & Surprising History of Protestantism & Contraception by Allan C. Carlson
